Any serious baker or pastry chef knows — the secret to amazing results is precision.
Serious bakers weigh the ingredients because measuring cups are approximate at best. They use temperature-controlled cookware, and regularly-calibrated ovens.
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You can’t just dump all the ingredients in the bowl, you have to follow the instructions. You must not over-beat, you must not over-knead. You have to respect the process and the product. Good food takes time and precision; you have to be patient.
And you must not, under any circumstances, eat batter directly from the bowl.
(But everyone knows that.)
Oat flour banana bread
(A non-fussy, non-temperamental, lots-of-room-for-error-and-toddler-helpers recipe.)
Ingredients
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C butter, softened
2 eggs (room temperature)
3-4 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 C buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 C all-purpose flour, 2 C oat flour (if you’ve never made oat flour, click here for a quick how-to)
OR
2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Optional: 1 cup chopped nuts or chocolate morsels
Directions
- Move oven racks to low position so that the tops of the pan will be in the center of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom only of a loaf pan.
- Mix sugar and butter in a large bowl. Stir in eggs until well-blended. Add bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt until just moistened.
- Pour batter into pan and bake for an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, until you can insert a toothpick into the center of the bread and it comes out clean.
A recipe that might help you out. It is modified from Taste of Home, and we now never buy spaghetti sauce. It is excellent. It can’t be doubled in the slow cooker, as it fills it. But, I will do double the meatballs, and, then add them to a second sauce batch. I also make it without the meatballs. It all freezes beautifully. And, if you use a liner for thr slow cooker and cookie sheet, MINIMAL cleanup!!
Slow Cooker spaghetti and meatballs
Ingredients
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 pounds ground beef
Sauce
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cans (15 ounces each) tomato sauce
2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) diced tomatoes, undrained
2 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
6 garlic cloves, minced
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoon each dried basil, oregano and parsley flakes
1/3 cup brown sugar (to taste)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Hot cooked spaghetti and/or buns for meatball sandwiches
Directions
1. Place the first five sauce ingredients in a 6-qt. slow cooker; stir in garlic and seasonings. Add meatballs, stirring gently to coat. Cook, covered, on low 5-6 hours or until meatballs are cooked through. About half way through, if not using meatballs or they were cooked when added). Taste, and add brown sugar, if needed. Because there are so many tomatoes, the acidity is high. The sugar removes the bite, and brown gives a much better flavor than white sugar, Start with 1 tablespoon, and add to taste.
2. In a large bowl or using stand mixer, mix bread crumbs, cheese, pepper and salt; stir in eggs. Add beef; mix lightly but thoroughly. Shape into 1-1/2-in. balls, using a sxoop. You will get around 3 dozen. Line a cookie sheet with foil. Spray a cooking rack with PAM, and place in/over cookie sheet. Bake until done, around 30 minutes. Bake until brown if you want them to finish cooking in the sauce.
I freeze in bags of 12 meatballs. There isn’t much sauce for pasta. I make another batch, no meatballs, and freeze it in quart bags. The slow cooker and oven does all the work.